The invention relates to a gripping device intended for conveyor belts, with gripping faces for engaging the upper and lower sides of the belt and with pivotally mounted holding elements.
Belt gripping devices of this type have long been available and are shown and described for example in the German Patent Publication No. 2,237,651, the German Pat. No. 1,064,303 and the German Utility Model No. 7,231,402. Such belt gripping devices serve to draw in and hold the conveyor belting and to tension its ends when such belt ends are to be joined together. Features of the prior art belt gripping devices involve the use of two clamping bars between which the end of the belt is placed and that the clamping force is produced with the aid of tension ropes which act on clamping elements and move the clamping bars by means of inclined planes or screws, or by means of a lever arrangement, in such a manner that the end of the conveyor belt engaged thereby is securely and powerfully held between the clamping bars as they are moved together.
Modern conveyor belts are very robust and are made in long lengths. Some conveying systems as used for example in mines use a very high driving power so that generally very large tension forces have to be applied to the conveyor belt when it is tensioned. Furthermore, particular difficulties occur if a conveyor belt held with a belt gripping device has substantial edge wear so that it no longer has the rated width. When gripping such conveyor belts the clamping bars of the belt gripping device are subjected to very high bending moments around the edges of the belt so that the transmission of force departs from the desired values and there will be a tendency for the belt gripping device to slip at the end of the conveyor belt and damage the belt.